A year after she stole my husband, my former best friend mailed me an invitation to her baby shower. “Come celebrate our little miracle,” she wrote,
The DNA clinic logo sat at the top like a sentence being handed down.
For six years, my ex-husband Daniel had convinced me I was the broken one. Six years of hormone injections, fertility specialists, invasive tests, tears, and his disappointed sighs every time another result came back negative. Six years of my best friend Camille holding my hand while secretly holding him too.
When I finally discovered them together, she cried beautifully into his shirt and whispered, “It just happened.”
Daniel looked me in the eyes and said, “She makes me feel like a man.”
Three months later, they announced their engagement.
Now Camille was pregnant.
Everyone called it fate.
I reread the lab report even though I already knew every word by memory. Daniel Mercer: congenital azoospermia. Sterile since birth. Not reduced fertility. Not damaged fertility. Impossible fertility.
Stapled behind it sat the second report.
Alistair Mercer: 99.99% probability of paternity.
Daniel’s younger brother.
A quiet laugh slipped out of me, barely louder than the rain outside.
For an entire year, Camille had flaunted her victory online. Her hand resting possessively on Daniel’s chest. Her diamond ring sparkling above my old dining table. Her captions dripping with smug cruelty: Some women lose because they were never meant to keep what they had.
She wanted an audience for my humiliation.
